Bro. Dan's Skidmarks

I'm not smart enough to have a blog. I can't speak the venacular of today like Aaron Linne or mine the depths of theological truth like soon-to-be Dr. Chuck Fuller or communicate with the grace of my friend Ray Hollenbach. In my 35+ years of pastoring, no one has ever said to me, "BD, you're too deep for me." So why am I creating a blog? Good question. Because I do have one thing ... COMMON SENSE. Now granted, I don't always use it like I should, but I've got it. So in my blogs, I will simply try to communicate some common sense in practical, often experiential ways.

I've titled my blog bd-skidmarks because that's the first thing I want to talk about ... SKIDMARKS IN LIFE. Let me begin.

To say I was a shy kid would be an understatement of apocalyptic proportions. I was so shy that when I returned to my high school for my ten year reunion they had to look my picture up in the annual to make sure I was part of the class. I rarely talked to anyone except my three best friends and didn’t have my first date until my senior year in high school. She was a freshman baritone player in the band (I played baritone too) and after spending the entire school year trying to work up the nerve to ask her out and when I finally did, to my utter amazement, she said, “Yes!”
We set our date for that Friday night. I cleaned out my mom’s 1962 Chevy Impala (not exactly a chick magnet), did extra chores to earn some “date” money (I’d never had to do that before), put on my best clothes, shaved (though I had absolutely no facial hair), and set out on my date. I picked her up at 7, took her to a movie, bought her a hamburger and had her home by 9:30. I remember the strange look she gave me when I walked her to the door (It was barely dark), but I simply didn’t know what to do with her. Remember, I told you I was shy.
Well, when word got out to my three friends about my “date.” The ridicule and kidding were intense. They made up nicknames for me. They told everyone they could about my misadventure. They wrote embarrassing things in my yearbook. To put it mildly, the last part of my senior year was a fiasco. Then came summer break.
Everything was going as usual until one evening one of my friends named Ron called me with an exciting proposition. A BLIND DATE!
It seemed that his girlfriend at the time had a cousin visiting her and the only way she could go out was to get a date for the cousin too. That’s where I came in. Ron asked if I would like to “double date” with him and his girlfriend and they would even provide my date. Well, since I wasn’t having the best luck in the romance area, I agreed. Then came the kicker!!! Ron had lost his license because he had too many points against them and couldn’t drive (remember this, it is important later). So he asked if I could “borrow” my mom’s car and drive.
Now you need to understand my mom was “funny” about her car. One night she was napping when I asked to borrow the car and when she grunted I took that for a “yes.” An hour later I was stopped by the State Police for “stealing” my mom’s car. Apparently, what I had taken for a yes had been merely what I thought it was … a grunt. So under those circumstances, I wasn’t terribly confident about being able to borrow the car, but when I told mom it was for a date, she immediately gave me the keys (even though the date was three nights away). I guess she had been having nightmares about having me live with them when I was forty.
So the big night finally came. I had my money. I had on “Hai Karate” aftershave (another story). I brushed my teeth (I had found out you actually get to kiss the girl if the date goes well). I was ready. Ready that is except for one small detail … I was driving my mom’s 1962 Chevy Impala four door sedan with an automatic transmission. Back in that day, that was about as “un-cool” as you could get. But, nonetheless, I picked up Ron and we headed out to pick up our dates.
I lived in the little town of Flatwoods, Kentucky and at the time Flatwoods was so small there was only one red light in the entire town … the corner of Powell Lane and Argillite Road. On the way to the girls’ house, Ron and I were discussing what a disaster my mom’s car was. Impala! Four doors! Automatic transmission! Most of the guys at that time had their own cars. They weren’t bought by their parents and they weren’t fancy, but they were cool. One thing that made them cool was when they had a Hertz four-speed transmission. Now obviously, most cars didn’t come with a Hertz four-speed transmission, but the guys who had their own car would buy a Hertz four-speed transmission kit, cut a hole in their floorboard, and install their “cool” transmission. The truth is this was pretty dumb because when it was raining or when you hit a mud hole, water would fly up through that hole and drench everyone in the front seat. But they were COOL! And I wished I had one.
Now I knew my mom would never ever consent (even if I told her I was getting married and moving out that weekend) to allowing me to cut a hole in her floorboard and put in a Hertz four-speed transmission, BUT … I could pretend!!!
All I had to do was drape my left wrist over the steering wheel and lay my right arm down in the seat. Then when I took off I would smash down the gas pedal for a couple of seconds (like I was in first gear), then let off the gas. I would then move my right arm forward to simulate shifting into second gear and smash my foot on the accelerator again. This process would continue until I was flying in fourth gear. It was a great idea and it worked. No one really thought I’d torn out the floorboard of my mom’s nice car, but it looked real enough and besides, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
So when Ron and I came to the red light on Powell Lane, I draped my left wrist over the steering wheel, laid my right arm down on the seat between us and waited for the light to change. I was about to demonstrate what “cool” really was. The light changed and after turning right on Argillite Road I jammed down my foot, prepped my right arm for the impending shift, and lifted my foot off the gas for that crucial shift into second gear. Just as I slammed my make-believe shift rod into second gear and punched my foot down on the gas pedal as hard as possible, I noticed him.
There in the on-coming line of traffic waiting at the red light sat a Kentucky State Trooper. It was one of those life changing instants that seem to last forever. Just as I saw him, he saw me. Our eyes locked in that crucial split-second and I had a decision to make.
I needed to do something and do it quick. I was straining my make believe second gear to the max. I had to do something. About that time I looked over at my friend Ron. Remember Ron, the guy whose license had been suspended because of poor decisions and too many tickets! The guy my dad had warned me would get me in trouble someday. I looked at Ron. Ron looked at me. I looked at the Trooper. The Trooper looked at me. I hear my dad’s voice in my head saying, “It’s never right to do wrong.” I looked at Ron. Ron looked at me. I looked back at Ron.
Now I want you to know I knew exactly what I should do. I should take my foot off the gas and if the trooper turned around I should pull over to the side of the road and take my ticket like a man. I knew that and knew it well. BUT …
In that moment, with my mind swirling, my heart pumping, my dad’s voice screaming in my ear, I looked at Ron. And Ron said the strangest thing. He said, “Kick it!” SO I DID!!! Told you my lettuce done slipped off my hamburger! In that instant I made quite possibly the dumbest decision of my life. Seventeen years old, driving my mom’s car, going to pick up my blind date, I shoved it into third gear and crunched my foot down on the gas. I saw Mr. State Police Man do his best Starsky and Hutch routine by spinning his car around and following in hot pursuit.
I learned quite a few lessons that evening and one of them was you get where you’re going a lot faster at 75 than you to at 35 (which was the speed limit on Argillite Road). So before I knew it, flying along Argillite Road at 75-80 miles an hour, State Police in hot pursuit, my friend Ron yelling “Harder, kick it harder!” I was suddenly where I was going. The driveway to the girl’s house was a gravel one and there was a telephone pole on the right hand side of it. Now I think you need to know I wasn’t a really great driver back then. As a matter of fact, I failed my driver’s test four times before a new trooper finally had mercy on me and passed me on my final try. But, I had another decision to make … and I made it.
Without worrying about what gear I was in (actually, I had never shifted out of third) I slammed on my brakes, turned the wheel sharply to the left and dove down into the driveway. How I missed that pole will forever remain a mystery to me. I fish-tailed down the driveway, spun the car around and unbelievably the garage door was open with no cars inside, so I drove in. Talk about a great first impression on a date!!! I drove into the driveway, jumped out of my car, raced to the corner of the house just as the Trooper’s car flew past. Momentarily I wiped my forehead and said, “Praise the Lord” only I really said something else. BUT …
I noticed on the sidewalk just past the driveway where I’d turned in there was a little old lady sweeping her sidewalk (I’ve never really understood why old people do that!). As I watched, she looked down my way, took her broom, raised it in the air and started waving it while she shouted, “He’s down there! He’s down there!” Then I heard the screech of tires as the trooper stomped his brakes. Just a couple of seconds later his lights flashing and his siren blaring, he turned down into the driveway and pulled up to the garage door.
When he got out of the car I promise you his first words were, “In a hurry, son?”(Do they teach them that at the police academy???) Truthfully, I don’t remember the details of the next few minutes. I don’t think I ever got to see my blind date. I don’t remember whether a crowd gathered or what. All I remember was having my head shoved down and being placed in the backseat of the cruiser. I honestly don’t think the officer handcuffed me (I weighed 145 pounds soaking wet with all my clothes on and I was scared to death). I also remember thinking to myself I hoped they gave me a life sentence because if they didn’t my dad was going to give me a death sentence.
Finally, the trooper got into the front seat and started to backup and head out of the driveway. As he did, I saw the little old lady with the broom standing by the telephone pole smiling like this hardened criminal had been captured and she had helped insure my doom. I looked at her through my window and thought about how much I’d like to take her broom and … when I blurted out to the trooper, “You wouldn’t have caught me if it hadn’t been for that lady.” I will never forget his next words. He was looking me straight in the eye as we backed up the driveway and when he got to the top, he smiled a quirky little smile and said, “Son, I didn’t see the woman. What gave you away and how I knew where you went were the SKIDMARKS you left on the road. They gave you away.”
You know what? We’ve all got skid marks on the roads of our lives. Or should I say we have “sin-marks.” They give us away. They tell the tale of bad decisions, of willful disobedience, of disastrous choices we’ve made along the road of our lives. They’re there as a testimony to our fallibility, our failure, our inability to live clean, pure lives. And to paraphrase a well known passage of Scripture, “the wages of sin-marks is death!”
I was extremely lucky with my skid marks. The trooper took me to the Flatwoods Police station where they called my dad. He came and picked me up, paid my fine and they set me free. I was infinitely more fortunate when the gracious God of the universe looked down at my sin-marks and decided to send His only begotten Son to erase those sin-marks by dying for me on that cross in Jerusalem. I eventually repaid my dad for the fine he paid for me, but I could never repay Jesus for paying my sin debt. The awesome thing is … I don’t have to! That same verse I paraphrased earlier closes by saying, “but, the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, His Son.”
Skid marks? Time and traffic have a way of erasing them off the highways.
Sin marks? They can only be erased by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. And guess what … He’s willing when you are.